Three Britons arrested in France's biggest ever cocaine bust

Three Britons were among nine people arrested after French police seized
almost 1.4 tonnes of cocaine smuggled on an Air France flight from
Venezuela, in the biggest haul of the drug ever made in mainland France.

French Interior minister Manuel Valls talks to journalists in front of cocaine seized by French policePhoto: AFP/Getty Images

Hannah Strange, and Henry Samuel in Paris

2:40PM BST 23 Sep 2013

The cocaine – with a street value of around 200 million euros (£168 million) – was hidden inside 30 suitcases loaded on to the plane in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, an airport tightly controlled by the country’s military. The discovery is a major embarrassment not only for the French airline but for the Venezuelan government, which has long been accused by the United States of complicity in the trafficking of narcotics.

Venezuela quickly announced the arrest of three members of the National Guard, who run security at Caracas’ Maiquetia Airport. Police in France said the suitcases had been registered under false names that did not correspond to passengers on the flight to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport. One police source said the drugs were destined for the ‘Ndrangeta, the Italian mafia based in Calabria that is believed to control up to 80 per cent of all cocaine imports to Europe.

Speaking on Venezuelan state television, Miguel Rodriguez, the country’s justice and interior minister, said that intelligence agents had detained a “first lieutenant from the anti-drug unit of the Bolivarian National Guard” along with two sergeants. A French police source said three Britons and three Italians had been held for questioning n Paris.

Some 900kg of the drugs were seized in the Paris airport while the remainder was taken from a lorry en route to Luxembourg, according to Le Monde.

Mr Rodriguez said it was “pretty clear” that there were accomplices working with Air France.

“How can the cocaine shipment reach France and it gets taken out without going through the normal controls?” he asked.

But opponents of Venezuela’s leftist government raised the same question of the military personnel directing security at Maiquetia airport, and suggested the three officers detained were mere scapegoats. “Proof positive that the National Guard runs drugs out of Maiquetia”, blared the headline of one well-known critical blog, Caracas Chronicles.

Washington has for years accused the Venezuelan government of turning a blind eye to smuggling through its territory, which anti-drugs officials say is the departure point for more than half of the cocaine reaching Britain’s streets. While Venezuela does not produce cocaine, its location and high levels of corruption make it a key trafficking route, and a number of high-ranking military and government officials, including former defence minister and ex-army chief General Henry Rangel, have been designated by the US Treasury as drug kingpins.

President Nicolas Maduro and his deceased predecessor Hugo Chavez both dismissed those criticisms as politically motivated.

Air France said it had launched an investigation into how the drugs came to be on board. “Pending the results of these investigations, immediate measures have been taken to enhance our checks of baggage and goods on departure from certain sensitive destinations,” the airline said in a statement.

French police Commander Mohamed Douhane, head of the Syngergie-officers police union, said an investigation had been launched to work out “if there was complicity either within Air France or inside the departure or arrival airports”.

The seizure was the result of cooperation between security forces in France, the Netherlands, Spain and Britain.

"This marks the biggest seizure of cocaine ever made in mainland France as part of a judicial investigation," French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said this weekend.